


Everything the Light Touches

by vega_voices



Series: Come Rain, Come Shine [52]
Category: Murphy Brown (TV)
Genre: Coming Out, Coming out as bi, F/M, Lion King (1994) References, Post-Canon, Post-Series, References to Addiction, bi family, death of a family member
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 20:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18599200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: Avery was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Peter figured it was time to go check on his wife. He got up from the bed and went to the door, glancing back one more time. This one wasn’t going to be smoothed over with hugs and stuffed animals and promises of time together. This one was going to hurt and it had to hurt and Peter just wished he could snap his fingers and make everything better.





	Everything the Light Touches

**Title:** Everything the Light Touches  
**Author:** vegawriters  
**Fandom:** Murphy Brown  
**Series:** Come Rain, Come Shine  
**Pairing:** Murphy Brown/Peter Hunt  
**Rating:** Teen  
**Timeframe:** Post-original series  
**A/N:** In the revival (season 11) pilot episode, they reveal that Eldin was trampled by the Bulls in Spain. I think there is more to the story, and this plays it out. CW: drug use.  
**Disclaimer:** TPTB at Bend in the Road and Warner Bros own everything. I know the drill.

 **Summary:** _Avery was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Peter figured it was time to go check on his wife. He got up from the bed and went to the door, glancing back one more time. This one wasn’t going to be smoothed over with hugs and stuffed animals and promises of time together. This one was going to hurt and it had to hurt and Peter just wished he could snap his fingers and make everything better._

 

Peter stared at the note in his hands. The scribbled, shaking handwriting spoke to the terror of the moment, the heartache of the mother who had placed the letter into the post before finding a way to bury her son.

“I need to reach out to Reena,” Murphy murmured, sinking to the couch in the library, her voice small and lost. “She shouldn’t have to cover these costs. I can do it.”

Spain had not been kind to Eldin Bernecky. Yes, he’d learned at the knee of his idol, cultivating new techniques to integrate into his own, but he’d learned other tricks as well. How to mix the perfect spoonful of heroin, how to slide the needle into his arm, how to drift into the nothingness the drug granted him.

Murphy had spotted it quickly. His glazed eyes in the morning, his jittery movements in the afternoon. The piles of sugar packets next to his coffee. Peter had stood there while she paced the bedroom, unsure of how to confront the man who had been there for her through so much. He’d been shocked at her reticence. Peter had never known Murphy to back down from a fight but she’d stood in her nerves and wavered. In the end, they’d sat there with Eldin while she laid out the rules -

If he ever came to work high, he was gone.

As far as Peter could recall, in the eight years since his return from Spain, Eldin had never again showed up stoned.

Still, there was no controlling his weekend movements, his off-time. His time at the house became more and more sporadic, and no one could argue. After all, Avery was growing up and didn’t need him as much. Murphy was healthy. Peter was home more. And the house didn’t need that much work.

They redid the kitchen, the dining room, started on the game room. Changed the windows in the living room to doors. Eldin appeared less and less, until, toward the end of Avery’s junior year, he’d told Murphy he was taking the summer to go back to Spain. Peter and Murphy had known, then, he wasn’t coming back. Now, with the weight and heat of July in DC pressing into all of them, it was official.

Even so, the letter from Reena cut through them both. Eldin was family.

“We have to tell Avery.”

Murphy’s voice was thick with tears. She took the letter back, reading it again and again, until Peter took her hands in his. “No matter how many times you read it … it won’t change anything …”

“I know …” she sighed. “I know.” She stared at the door. “Let’s go.”

Out in the living room, Avery sprawled on the couch, his feet propped up on pillows and his hand in a bag of cheetos. The windows were open, which helped alleviate, only slightly, the faint smell of weed. They must have been outside smoking before coming in to snack. Sean was on the floor and Peter had to chuckle at how the two boys moved just slightly apart as they came into the room. They weren’t fooling anyone, and Murphy wanted to say something, but Peter knew best to let Avery come to them when he was ready. Right now, he was just glad Sean was here.

“Avery, turn off the TV,” Murphy ordered. Peter watched her look at Sean, weighing whether or not to send the secret boyfriend away. “Sean … this is …”

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Avery sat up. “Wait. Have you been crying?”

“Avery, I …”

“We need to talk to you about Eldin,” Peter said. He watched Sean weigh the need to give the family privacy with wanting to stay and be there for Avery and when he scooted up to the couch and outed the both of them by putting his hand on Avery’s arm, Peter let out a breath and wondered, suddenly, if Eldin had known. The two of them, thick as thieves, had their secrets. He knew Murphy wouldn’t say anything. For all her bluntness and refusal to let things slide, there was also a sense of decorum about her. Especially when it came to Avery. There were just things in the world she wanted to protect him from.

“What happened?” Avery asked, his voice trembling.

“He … uh …” Murphy stared down at the letter.

Eldin had gone down to the Running of the Bulls. Reena didn’t say, but Peter would bet he’d been stoned. He’d gone before. What had changed to make it so he’d slipped and been trampled?

“He was hurt,” Murphy said. “He …” she sank into the chair. Peter put his hand on her shoulder, blinking back his own tears. “Avery, he was trampled at the Running of the Bulls.”

“But he’s okay, right? He’s going to be okay?”

All four of them knew the question was pointless, but Peter knew Avery needed to ask it. When Murphy’s tears answered him, Avery stood and raced up the stairs as fast as his sore leg would allow. Sean looked torn but Peter nodded to him. “Go on,” he said. He had his own broken heart to manage right now. Sean tore up the stairs after Avery and Peter crouched down next to Murphy, who had burst into fresh, agonized tears.

“He was the only one who was happy for me when I got pregnant,” she whimpered, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Everyone else, especially Frank, was freaking out and making me question everything and there was Eldin, giving me permission to be excited. He was hugging me and planning the nursery and promising to be there and he had no reason to stay. He was in the room when Avery was born.” She wiped her eyes. “And now he’s gone.”

Peter reached up and wiped her eyes, ready to say something, when she let out a sigh and surprised him.

“Honestly … I wonder if he was ever really back from Spain.”

Peter couldn’t respond. Murphy stood up and walked to the stairs. “I should go talk to him.”

“Leave it to Sean for a minute.”

“He’s not old enough to have his boyfriend up in his room like this.”

“He doesn’t know we know.”

“I wonder if Eldin knew …” she sighed, mirroring his thoughts. “He was so much better at that part than I am.”

Silence. Murphy turned to him and Peter put his arms around her. “I’m sorry, baby,” he murmured, stroking his hand down her back. “I’m so sorry.”

She could only clutch him tightly.

***

Eventually, Murphy had gone to bed. Peter made sure Sean left and, unsure which broken heart to choose from, went to find his son.

Avery was sitting in his bedroom, staring at the poster on his wall. Britney was going out of fashion, but there she stood, vamping into the mic. Avery had his Harry Potter blanket around his shoulders and a stuffed dragon in his lap. He looked maybe twelve.

“Where’s your head at?” Peter asked.

Avery shrugged. “You think he was high?”

Peter blinked. “You knew?”

“I suspected something.” Avery looked over and Peter winced at the red rimmed eyes and sagging shoulders. “It doesn’t feel real.”

“I know.”

“How’s mom?”

“She went to bed,” Peter responded. “She isn’t doing great.”

Avery stared down at the dragon. “I know how she feels.”

Peter made his way into the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Your mom says that Eldin was the first person to be happy for her when she found out she was pregnant. Even before she let herself be happy. He meant so much to her and you meant so much to him.”

“Not enough for him not to be an idiot.” Avery snorted and tossed the dragon across the room and flopped back onto the bed. For a minute, he was six again, throwing a tantrum because Peter was heading out the door or Murphy had told him to go to bed. “Who runs with the bulls?” Avery whined.

“Eldin did.”

Avery was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Peter figured it was time to go check on his wife. He got up from the bed and went to the door, glancing back one more time. This one wasn’t going to be smoothed over with hugs and stuffed animals and promises of time together. This one was going to hurt and it had to hurt and Peter just wished he could snap his fingers and make everything better.

***

Murphy didn’t bat an eye when Avery wanted to stay home from baseball practice. She sent Peter off to the office and stayed home herself, giving her beloved son space while keeping an ear out from the library. It wasn't like she was working much anyway. Instead, she lost herself in looking through Eldin’s endless sample books and portfolios he kept in her space. The photo spreads of her home in Architectural Digest and Better Homes & Gardens. The murals that were the talk of art houses everywhere. Was it wrong that she honestly loved how well he just painted a wall?

She called Avery’s coach and excused him for the rest of the week. She called Reena, left a voicemail, told her to call so she could cover the cost of getting Eldin home and buried. She called her sponsor and burst into tears all over again. Yes, she promised Monica, she’d be at the meeting tonight.

It was only after she hung up that she realized Avery was standing in the door. She let out a sigh and stood, wiping her eyes, and went to hug him. He hugged her back.

When had he had this last growth spurt? How was the little boy she’d been so scared to hold now taller than her? How was he seventeen years old?

“Mom?” He looked at her and she looked back, wiping tears from his eyes. “Can I … come to … your meeting tonight?”

It wasn’t like they spent a lot of time talking about her past. Avery had access to the internet. He looked her up sometimes. She would answer questions if he asked. But she’d never sat him down and talked about what it meant for her to be an addict. About how drinking had almost killed her and how it had been his Uncle Jim who saved her life. He knew about Betty Ford. He knew she’d smoked pot during her chemo. A part of her had never really wanted to share that part with him. She wanted him to see her as she was now, not the mess she’d once been.

“Sure,” she said, wading through the panicked mass of questions that filled her heart. “If … you’re sure.”

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I just …” he looked at her, scared and confused at the world. “Do they help you? I mean, you don’t go often.”

Murphy settled into the couch. Avery joined her. “I don’t go often,” she said. “I don’t like listening to all of these other stories. Not all the time. I have my work, I have you. I always felt like meetings were crutches for people who were scared to go out and live their sober lives. But sometimes …” she sighed. “Sometimes it’s helpful to be in a room with a bunch of other people who are all like me and I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t really appreciate them until I got sick and was in that group with the other women with cancer.”

“Did you ever …” Avery sucked in a breath and she knew he was wondering about Eldin, which made her wonder what exactly Avery knew. “You know?”

“Fall off the wagon?”

Avery nodded. Murphy sighed. “No,” she said. “But I came close a few times and I won’t lie, there have been some times when I ended up in the wine section of the store or I sent your dad out because I didn’t trust myself. Once … it was before you were born. The tabloids were running with this rumor that I was drinking again. There was this one night in the midst of all of it that I just thought I wouldn’t bother anymore. Another time, when your dad and I had split up …it was really hard. But no, I haven’t slipped.” She quirked a bit of a smile. “My deep seeded fear of failure is actually helpful in this instance. The idea that I’d fail at sobriety is horrifying.”

Avery smiled a little bit and she waited, seeing the question in his eyes. Was it hard for him, being her son? Knowing that she could tell when he was trying to say something under the surface? She was trained to push. It was all she knew. Was it smart for her? For them?

“Did you ever talk to Eldin?”

“About my sobriety or his?” No use hiding it now, even as much as she wanted to.

“Both?”

Murphy sighed. “Not really. But he was aware. I was too. I told him I couldn’t control his sobriety,” she admitted. “But, I would fire him if he ever showed up to work stoned. Especially on a day he was working with you. As far as I knew, he never did.” She paused. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t. I suspected. Sometimes he acted like a friend of mine at school who everyone knows is using.”

The admission hit her. Hard. “Wait. Kids at your school are using?!” The withered look from her son reminded her that she might not want to appear so out of touch if he was going to open up. “I’m sorry.” She sighed. “I really am.”

“How do you … how did …?”

“Avery, there’s one thing that you need to understand about addicts … we can want to get help, we can want to have our friends notice our pain … we can know we’re screwing up and hurting people, but in the end, our decision to get and stay sober has to be on us. All the interventions in the world don’t do anything but remind us how much we want to stay sober for the people we love.”

“What made you want to get help?”

Murphy closed her eyes, thinking back to that hole in her memory. She remembered the index cards, the interview notes, the bottle of Jack. She didn’t remember getting home. Or even calling Jim. Just waking to his hands on her face and tears in his eyes.

“I blew the biggest moment of my life,” she said, looking into her son’s eyes. “I had the impossible-to-get interview. I’d landed Noriega before he started granting time. I had the right to ask any questions I wanted to ask. And I was so scared of screwing it up that I opened a bottle and started drinking and blacked out. I drove home that way. I could have killed someone that night. Or myself. Hell, I called your Uncle Jim to let him know I needed help and I kept drinking. I … it could have ruined everything, Avery.”

“Can I ask why it didn’t?”

She swallowed and decided it was time to treat her son like a man. After all, he’d asked one of the most adult questions he could have asked. “Because my mentor at the network, the man who hired me and brought me up … he fell on his sword for me, Avery. He stood beside me and took responsibility for my blowing the interview. He said he should have been watching more closely. He took the blame. So he … retired … and I got to keep my job.”

Avery sat there, stunned. Murphy waited.

“Would you have done that for Eldin?”

Tears came fresh to her eyes and she reached over and squeezed his hand. “God, Avery. I’d have sold my soul for him. But sometimes, things just happen. I would bet he didn’t plan to get trampled that day. I would bet he went there to get stories that would make great art. It was an accident.”

“Do you really think he was high?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Me too.” Avery sucked in a breath. “I promise, Mom, I’m not gonna do anything.”

“Anything stronger than weed?” She smirked a bit. “Because don’t set yourself up to lie to me right away. And I know you’ve had stuff to drink already.” Avery paled. Murphy smiled. “I’m not dumb, kid. Sorry. Just promise me you will always call. Don’t ever drive when you’ve been smoking out or drinking.”

He was quiet and then nodded. “Okay.”

“And don’t you dare ever try to hit on …” she stopped herself. “Don’t hit on anyone when they’re intoxicated, you hear me? And don’t you let anyone hit on you. Only make those decisions when you’re sober.” She paused. “And always know you can come to me about anything.”

Avery nodded. “I know, Mom.” And he hugged her again. She rocked him as best she could, this child that had grown into a young man sometime when she was blinking.

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispered. “And I know Eldin was too.”

That did it. Avery’s walls came tumbling down and he burst into angry sobs. Murphy held him and let herself cry too.

***

From his spot on the stairs, Avery could hear his parents in the kitchen. They’d all gone to the meeting and he’d sat there and watched his mom stand up and tell the world that she was an alcoholic and that it had been twenty years since she had a drink and she wasn’t planning on having a drink but it was good to be there tonight and she talked about why. He’d watched her stand there in her jeans and a black shirt and her converse sneakers like she was just this normal person who didn’t go on camera and eviscerate her interviewees like it was their day of judgement. He sat there and watched his step-father watch her and realized just how much Peter helped her stay sober and it scared him because he was going to college soon and what about the next time Peter was overseas and would she be okay without Eldin?

_“I like him, this guy of your moms,” Eldin had said one day. “I remember when she met him.”_

_“Yeah?” They’d been at the zoo. Eldin teaching him about sex cause he knew “your mom will be too nervous to bring it up.”_

_“Yeah. She came home from work grumbling about him and I knew then something was up and then he showed up one night at the door, his arm in a sling, and I tell you kid, I knew then. He’s a good egg.”_

_“Even though he wasn’t here when she was sick?”_

_“You met your mom?” Eldin laughed. “She’d rebuild the house herself to prove she could do it. If I know them, and I can’t say I do as well as I should, I bet they did their best.”_

_“Then why haven’t they got married?”_

_Eldin laughed. “Sorry, kid. I’m trying to imagine your mom with a ring on her finger. But, if anyone can convince her, I know it’s him.” He nodded to the hippos. “See what they’re doing. Your mom and dad do that a lot. I used to find them all the time.” He smirked. “Still do. I tell you kid, when he gets home from assignments, I’m surprised you don’t need ear plugs.”_

_He shivered. “That’s disgusting.”_

_“You might not mind so much someday.” He started at him. “Guys or girls. You might not care. But if you do care, just be safe and have fun about it.”_

_Avery watched the hippos and squished his face. “Can I ask a question?”_

_“Any time, kid.”_

_“How do you be safe?”_

_“Well, kid. We’ll stop for some bananas on the way home.”_

Avery wiped his eyes and got up, moving quietly down to the kitchen. He wanted to go into the basement, hang out on the couch and smoke the joint Sean had left behind, and watch The Lion King for the millionth time. But to do that he’d have to go through the kitchen and he didn’t want to see his parents being miserable. He didn’t want to see his mother’s red-rimmed eyes. He just wanted to get stoned and …

Get stoned.

Okay. Maybe not.

He sighed and got up. Maybe they’d leave him alone.

Instead, he came into the kitchen to see his mother in his father’s arms, her fingers tight in his shirt. Peter was stroking her hair.

“Hey, kiddo,” Peter said. “You doing okay?”

He wasn’t, but he didn’t want to make his mom feel even worse. “Yeah …” he took a breath. “I was gonna go watch a movie.” Another breath. “Wanna come?”

“Which one?” Peter asked, his arms still around his mom.

“Lion King?”

Silence. And then his mother surprised him. “You know, the first time you saw it … all I could do was think of Eldin as Rafiki.”

Avery grinned. “Me too.”

She pointed to the freezer. “Get the ice cream.”

Avery turned but paused and looked back. “Mom?”

“Yeah?” She was filling a bottle of water.

He stared at her, taking in the shoulder length blonde hair that was straighter since the chemo all those years ago. The set of her eyes. The way she held herself. “I’m really proud of you,” he said. “Tonight … I learned a lot about you. And someday, I want to learn everything.”

Tears filled her eyes but didn’t fall. She let out a breath and walked over, wrapping him up tightly. “Never in a million years,” she joked.

Avery laughed and then took a breath, suddenly stepping back. “Um, I need to …” he looked at his parents. “I need to tell you something. About me. And Sean.” He wasn’t immune to the quirk of their lips or the glance they exchanged. “Wait! You know?!”

“Next time, close the library door, kid.” Peter chuckled. “And remember, your mom and I have had sex on that couch, too.”

A shudder ran through Avery’s body and he groaned. “No. Why. No.”

“In fact, remember that one night right after we started dating, Murphy? That teal dress you wore?”

“STOP!” Avery closed his eyes against the teasing and only ended up conjuring the mental image of his parents wrapped up like pretzels on the couch in the library. “Stop.” But everyone was laughing. He needed to say the rest of what he had to say. “Guys, I’m not gay.”

“It’s okay, Avery --”

He cut his mother off. “I’m bi. Sean’s gay, but I’m bi.” He swallowed, scared. “Eldin knew. He … he figured it out a long time ago, actually.” The laughter faded to tears. “He told me it was okay.”

“It is,” his father said. “It’s more than okay. And you know what, when you’re ready, we’ll have a whole talk about this. Because you aren’t alone. Not in the world, and not in this family.”

The realization of what was being said hit him, hard, and for a flash of a moment, Avery was angry because why hadn’t they ever said anything and who was what and why and where? But right now, it was too much. “Okay.” He paused. “Can Sean come to Eldin’s memorial?”

“Nothing changes with Sean,” Murphy said. “You’ve already been doing things I’d rather you didn’t do and he’s your best friend. Him and Tia and Ali and Connor, nothing changes for them, okay?”

“His parents don’t know. And if they did, they’d kick him out.”

His parents both shook their heads. “He’s always welcome here, Avery.” Peter reassured him. “Just, be safe. Okay?”

“Okay.” He nodded, jamming his hands into his jeans. “And wait, you guys are …?” He hadn’t been expecting to come out awkwardly in the kitchen instead of going to go down and watch the Lion King.

“Your dad is bi,” his mother said. “And if you think I went through the sexual revolution in the 60s and didn’t at least try something? Well, you aren’t as perceptive as I thought.” She quirked a smile. “And you’re right. We should have said something a long time ago. But it’s not that easy a conversation to broach. We knew about you and Sean. And we just want you to be safe and happy.”

Avery nodded. “Okay.” He took a breath. “Okay.”

“And,” Peter piped up, “I want to talk to you about it. Whenever you’re ready. It isn’t easy being a bi guy.”

Relief flooded through him. “Thanks.”

“I’m so glad Eldin was aware,” his mother said. “I’m so glad he made it safe for you.”

Avery nodded, the weight hitting him again. “I’m … yeah. Me too.” Another breath. And another. “Ice cream? Lion King?”

“Definitely.” Peter said, reaching past him to open the fridge.

Avery led the way down the stairs, stopping as he came to the bottom. There was Eldin’s last mural, still being worked on. Simba, sandwiched between Mufasa and Sarabi and the light spread out behind them. In the corner, a still half-sketched Rafiki shook his stick in the air, aiming his rage at an ever encroaching Imperialist skyline.

“He never finished it …” Avery choked out. “He … he was supposed to come back and finish it.”

His mother walked over to the wall and crouched down, examining the figure of the monkey. “Nah,” she forced out. “It’s perfect.”

 

**For Brandon. I miss you, stupidhead.**


End file.
